posted September 14, 2007 21:02
This is a chronological order of my week; the names have been changed to protect the innocent (what good that will do).

First get some aspirin and a cup of java; you’re going to need it!!!

It was the week from hell, I was at my mom's last Saturday and she complained about her chest hurting and feeling tired (angio- tensin). When I got there and I noticed that her leg was swollen and she could hardly go 20 feet or so and she had to catch her breath.

Tried to convince her to go to the hospital, and got a big NO... so she promised that she would see a doc on Monday

Monday night comes around I call her and she says no I haven't found a doctor yet, and a strange thing happened that she had a blood shot eye. She didn't think this was much of an issue because only a week before she had the other eye do the same thing.

So I am putting together in my head what is happening and I call a friend who has a girlfriend that is a nurse, and she agrees with me that it could be CHF (Congestive Heart Failure).

So he and his better half go grab mom and take her to the hospital. Once there they get her blood pressure and it's like 200 over 115... DOOH! So they admit her and immediately start doing stuff to treat the symptoms.

That night the Cardiologist Dr. AAAA came and checked her out, his recommendation was to do a catheterization to get a better look at what was going on with her heart. She refused that course of treatment until she got basically shoved in the direction to do it.Spent Tuesday in the hospital twiddling my thumbs

So the next day (WED) she got the catheterization done, the doctor wanted to consult with the others in his group about the stents and placement because the blockage was in the Left Anterior Descending Artery AKA the Widow Maker at the junction.

They scheduled her for angioplasty and stents the following day(Thurs). Mostly because of her history, and they thought that this was the best course of action to proceed.

She refused this procedure because she didn't like the doctor, not because he was competent or skilled, I guess he just had a poor bedside manner.

So Later that day she is trying to get discharged from the hospital and Dr. BBBBB comes in to talk to her, and compromised with her to try the pill form of treatment, rather than getting the angioplasty and stents. You could tell by the look on his face this wasn’t the best course of action, more like a death sentence.

So they sent her home with the artery blocked more than 85% and a bunch of prescriptions. 480.00 (because she opted out of medicade…WTF ) later I had 7 different things for her to take, and a pill box broken out into 14 days. did i mention that she wants to do everything homeopathic, so over the next 3 years or so its really going to make a difference.

I was physically and emotionally drained at this point. So I pointed the bimmer south and got to the house around 4 hours later.

BTW I need to mention she smokes like a chiming, and hates medicine because it’s all "BAD Poison"!! Never mind her cheery outlook on life that the stock market is going to crash tomorrow and were all screwed. Invest in gold because the fiat currency the world is on is going to fail!!!

--------------------P.E.B.K.A.C. if you can fix this, you can fix anything.Posts: 183 | From: VA under a bridge living in a van. | Registered: Jul 2007
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posted September 16, 2007 08:01
Im sorry to hear about your mothers poor health and the taxing week you had dealing with it.

I worked in hospitals alot in the late 80's early 90's and I saw alot of behaviour like that. I also see it sometimes in various family members.

Sometimes it is a result of not wanting to burden anyone, sometimes it is a result of denial. Once in a while itwas a result of pure passive/aggressive bullpuckey.

It sounds like yourmothers issues stem a bit from all 3.

At the risk of sounding like a cold bitch I reccomend you take a deep breath, step back, and disengage a bit.

She is an adultand can choose her care and procedures. It is hard to step back and watch someone lose out on many more years of life through denial and stubborness but it may just be the only route you have.

I am sorry the burden of trying to pay for her meds after sabotaging her medicare access isfalling to you. Maybe there is a counselor at the hospital that can help try to figure out how to pay for her meds? Maybe step back and let her deal with the pit she has created?

also, possibly counseling for you? To help deal with pulling back, or counseling to learn how to dealwith this monster issue you mom has created without losing your mind as well?

posted September 16, 2007 10:01
Sorry to hear about your mother's health, and I'm sorry you are getting such a rough deal.

YaYawoman speaks a lot of sense, but there is one idea I'd like to throw in as my two-penn'orth.

My parents generation are now people in their 70s and 80's and when they were being brought up, most of the world was at war. So, their parents - who had probably been through the Great Depression, the general Strike, WW1, etc instilled a particular attitude in their kids (our parents) - call it stoicism, stiff upper lip, true grit, whatever....but I think they were the last generation to be brought up to suffer in silence, not make a fuss, "be a man" etc. Because, in those days, everyone needed a good dose of sheer bloody-mindedness to get through the hard times.

I think, therefore, that your mother's attitude simply shows a type of stoicism that, until recently, society needed as a survival mechanism, but on which our generation does not rely so much.

posted September 16, 2007 10:25
Hal, i finally figured out that some people just plain like pain.

Some like it because it is all they have known and that is the status quo and changing their life/attitude/job/status is friggin scary.

Some like it because pain gives a perverse sense of superiority. the old Monty python routine comes to mind. You know the one? Tea in a cup? why when I was a young'un we didnt have acup. (The yorkshirmen I think? Perhaps someone here who knows willpost it?)

Some like it because it gives them a club tobeat family and friends with. Or a claw to clutch them close with pity and guilt and many other negative emotions.

Some like pain because it helps them justify the big self-pity hot tub. They tend to wallow like pigs in it. Take away the pain, and what is left?

I have been guilty myself of some ofthe above. I am in a much better place now then when I was sucking on the pain teat but it took a long series of poor decisions and drifting to realize it. Your mom sounds like she has been likethis so long that she may never change.

posted September 16, 2007 12:59
BOY OH BOY you all have spoken the truth here.... well it looks as if, you look in from outside you folks are right.

Maybe she’s just alone and doesn’t know how to verbalize it.

She was born in 1929 (that is before electricity) LOLI wonder if this is her way of saying look at me!!!Or better yet the good ole [email protected]#$ [email protected]^ I am going to die and I am bored, let’s get the hell out of here.

Anyways, I needed to bitch and get it off my chest. This seems as good a place as any, since none of you know the rest of my family : evil: and they would be horrified. And if you want to meet them just look up dysfunctional in the dictionary.

I do want to add doing the right thing really sucks sometimes!

--------------------P.E.B.K.A.C. if you can fix this, you can fix anything.Posts: 183 | From: VA under a bridge living in a van. | Registered: Jul 2007
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quote:Originally posted by hal9000: She refused this procedure because she didn't like the doctor, not because he was competent or skilled, I guess he just had a poor bedside manner.

That's common. People always rate the doctors with good personalities as more competent than others. If you, however, measure clinical success, you often find that the blunt, efficient ones are the kind that keep you alive. Any idiot can have good beside manner. I'ld rather have Dr. Cox (from Scrubs) on my side any day.
Posts: 2902 | From: 5 to 15 meters above sea level | Registered: Jun 2000
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quote:Originally posted by hal9000: She refused this procedure because she didn't like the doctor, not because he was competent or skilled, I guess he just had a poor bedside manner.

That's common. People always rate the doctors with good personalities as more competent than others. If you, however, measure clinical success, you often find that the blunt, efficient ones are the kind that keep you alive. Any idiot can have good beside manner. I'ld rather have Dr. Cox (from Scrubs) on my side any day.

Can it, dorothy

--------------------"The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does at the top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower." - Robert M. PirsigPosts: 948 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted September 17, 2007 19:55
I think shes skitzo.... today i talk to her on the phone and shes all curious as to what the hell an angioplasty is.... I really wonder if she has althizmers. cause she cant remember what she told you 20 mins ago....and the same storys over and over.

I love my mom but does it mean i have to like her?

--------------------P.E.B.K.A.C. if you can fix this, you can fix anything.Posts: 183 | From: VA under a bridge living in a van. | Registered: Jul 2007
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My father in law is scared he may have the first signs of Alzheimers... he might be right - he tells me the same stuff over and over never being sure if he told me before but he manages to run his day to day life fine... so is it Alzhiemers or just natural "forgetfulness"???

Hard call - my parents are now into their 70s and doing fine but they bring each other up on "little slips" of factuality - my FIL lives alone and has always pretty much done so... (complicated story - he is not my wife's biological father or even legal "step parent")

But in the end they are adults ... unless real signs of "inability to cope" appear it is not for us to judge - they grew up in different times with different values. Be it "Make do and mend" or the "Stiff upper lip" or whatever... for many here in UK the NHS is what they grew up with - free but they still feel that "you shouldn't 'put on it' without cause..."

That (and from my own experience) no-one ever wants to admit to being "ill" or in need of medical assistance.. After all that means admitting to getting older - or facing up to the reality of mortality - and our society is not particularly kind to that...

--------------------"So if you want my address - it's No. 1 at the end of the bar, where I sit with the broken angels, clutching at straws and nursing my scars..."Posts: 1937 | From: Suffolk England | Registered: Sep 2004
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posted September 18, 2007 17:39
Yup, you can love a relative and not like them. shoot I look at some of my relatives and think the mother should have swallowed that night. I bet some think the same about me. Cant choose your relative, but you can choose how to interact with them.
Posts: 765 | From: virginia | Registered: Oct 2005
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quote:Originally posted by Serenak: My father in law is scared he may have the first signs of Alzheimers... he might be right - he tells me the same stuff over and over never being sure if he told me before but he manages to run his day to day life fine... so is it Alzhiemers or just natural "forgetfulness"???

There are other forms of dementia, too. We feared my grandfather was getting Alzheimer's or something similar, but it turned to mostly be a vitamin deficiency (E, if I remember correctly). It also didn't help that he avoided wearing his hearing aid and didn't like admitting he had a hearing problem, so we couldn't tell if he didn't remember, or just never heard in the first place.

My other grandpa went through a far more severe episode with a potassium deficiency, which we also thought might be dementia at first.